Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Why Is Nutrition So Stressful? The challenge of navigating “good” food choices

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Why Is Nutrition So Stressful? The challenge of navigating “good” food choices · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is parent data. I'm Emily Oster.
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  Speaker 2: We are the rainbow of foods that you should have
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: in all your meals. Eat your rainbow every day and
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  Speaker 2: great is how you will feel. We'll give you a
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: essential vitaminsen also men or rosso when you get it
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: on green, make sure you sit and eat a rainbow.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the dollar red.
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  Speaker 3: We are something between Halloween candy, Thanksgiving pie, Christmas pudding
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  Speaker 3: and RFK junior. It's hard to avoid a discussion of
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  Speaker 3: nutrition these days.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, if you live in the world.
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  Speaker 3: Of parenting, it's hard to avoid discussions of food and
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  Speaker 3: nutrition basically.
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  Speaker 5: Ever, the World Health Organization says the number of obese
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  Speaker 5: children and teens is now ten times higher than it
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  Speaker 5: was forty years ago due to poor nutrition and lack
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  Speaker 5: of exercise. A new study suggests children are heavier today
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  Speaker 5: than they were in the last decade.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah researcher say the percentage of kindergarteners can considered to
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  Speaker 2: be obese has jumped considerably.
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  Speaker 6: Many parents are struggling with how best to help their
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  Speaker 6: overweight children, and make no mistake about it, childhood obesity
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  Speaker 6: is a staggering problem. Of course, It's best to start
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  Speaker 6: kids in the habit of eating healthy from a very
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  Speaker 6: young age. But if your children have kind of gotten
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  Speaker 6: off track, nutrition experts say you need to start small.
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  Speaker 4: How do I feed my kids the right foods?
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  Speaker 1: What are the right foods?
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  Speaker 4: What if they are picky, like really picky?
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  Speaker 3: Am I poisoning my kids if I sometimes give them doridos?
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  Speaker 3: How important is it to cook dinner every night? And honestly,
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  Speaker 3: has anyone ever really managed to do that?
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  Speaker 4: These questions are hard.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, nearly all nutrition questions are hard to answer
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  Speaker 3: with data because disentangling correlation from causation is nearly impossible.
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  Speaker 4: What we eat is so wrapped up.
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  Speaker 3: In everything else we do that it's very challenging to
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  Speaker 3: point to a particular food or even a particular eating
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  Speaker 3: pattern and say that it's unhealthy or.
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  Speaker 4: That it's healthy.
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  Speaker 3: But that doesn't necessarily mean we know nothing. And my
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  Speaker 3: guest today, doctor Robert Davis, is here to talk it
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  Speaker 3: through with me. Robert is a medical doctor and an
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  Speaker 3: award winning health journalist, and most importantly, he's a voice
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  Speaker 3: of sanity who realistically explores the nuance of nutrition, the
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  Speaker 3: food industry, childhood obesity, and how challenging it is for
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  Speaker 3: individual parents to try to parse through it all. We
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  Speaker 3: talk about diet versus eating habits and the importance of
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: language around that issue. We talk about food fads in
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: the recent past and what we keep not learning from them.
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  Speaker 3: I'm looking at you, Margarine, what Robert calls nutritionism, obsessing
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  Speaker 3: about omega threes instead of thinking holistically about our diets,
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  Speaker 3: Whether ultra processed foods are really as bad as we're
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  Speaker 3: led to believe kids and Nozebic and how heavy a
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  Speaker 3: hand parents are supposed to take when it comes to
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  Speaker 3: their kids nutrition.
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  Speaker 4: This is a tough topic. We need to eat, we need.
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  Speaker 3: To feed our kids, and I don't think we fully
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  Speaker 3: process how stressful it is to feel responsible for our kids'
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  Speaker 3: health and as they get older, their body image. Hopefully
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  Speaker 3: this conversation can help alleviate some of that stress, especially
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  Speaker 3: around this time of year.
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  Speaker 4: After the break, Doctor Robert Davis, every day.
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  Speaker 2: It is how you feel. We'll give you a essential
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  Speaker 2: vital mins and also mand Oroso and you, Gavin Aungreen,
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  Speaker 2: make sure you sit and eat your rainbow.
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  Speaker 3: Doctor Robert Davis, thank you so much for joining me
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  Speaker 3: on parent Data. Thanks for having me so can we
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  Speaker 3: start by having you introduce yourself a bit well.
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  Speaker 7: I have spent many years as a healthcare journalist covering nutrition, fitness,
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  Speaker 7: other wellness topics. I've written four books covering topics including nutrition, fitness,
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  Speaker 7: weight loss, and general wellness. And I have a series
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  Speaker 7: of videos called The Health Healthy Skeptic, in which I
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  Speaker 7: take common health claims and nutrition and fitness and wellness,
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  Speaker 7: try to look at the science, help viewers understand what's true,
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  Speaker 7: what's not, what's believable, what's not, and sort through all
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  Speaker 7: the misinformation and confusing facts that are out there on
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  Speaker 7: these topics.
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  Speaker 4: It is a noble but difficult goal.
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  Speaker 3: Indeed, So I want to talk about two things today,
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  Speaker 3: both of which surround diet and food, and the first
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  Speaker 3: one of them is the question of.
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  Speaker 1: What makes a healthy diet.
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  Speaker 3: I spend a tremendous amount of time, as I think
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  Speaker 3: you do, kind of reading studies about food and trying
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  Speaker 3: to help people parse correlation from causality, and for me,
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  Speaker 3: it's one of the most challenging literature, is one of
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  Speaker 3: the most challenging kinds of data to understand because I
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  Speaker 3: think the correlations are so strong, Establishing causality is so challenging,
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  Speaker 3: and what we eat is so deeply wrapped up in
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  Speaker 3: so many other things that we do. So we might
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  Speaker 3: get to nerd out a little bit on some data,
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  Speaker 3: which would be great, I hope. But let me start
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  Speaker 3: with a question, which is, let's say I came to
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  Speaker 3: you and I just said, you know, I'm a person
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  Speaker 3: and i'd like.
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  Speaker 1: To be healthy. What is the best diet? How should
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  Speaker 1: I eat well?
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  Speaker 7: First of all, let me say I'm not a fan
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  Speaker 7: of the word diet because of what it cannotes.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 7: When you think of diet, you think about something that's restrictive,
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  Speaker 7: something that's a regimen that's hard to follow, something that
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  Speaker 7: you can't.
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  Speaker 8: Follow for very long.
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  Speaker 7: And so I use the word diet, but it's not
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  Speaker 7: something I love to do. I prefer to talk in
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  Speaker 7: terms of eating patterns, eating habits, because I think that's
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  Speaker 7: really more appropriate when we're talking about what the best
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  Speaker 7: way to eat is. So that said, I would say
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  Speaker 7: that the best diet quote unquote, or the best way
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  Speaker 7: of eating is the so called Mediterranean diet, and that
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  Speaker 7: has received more attention obviously over the years, and has
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  Speaker 7: been the subject of greater study and has been validated
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  Speaker 7: more than just pretty much any other way of eating
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  Speaker 7: that is out there. There have been and I we
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  Speaker 7: can talk about the different kinds of studies. Of course,
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  Speaker 7: there have been a number of so called cohort studies.
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  Speaker 7: Those are the kinds that show correlation in which they
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  Speaker 7: follow large groups of people over many years or decades,
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  Speaker 7: and those studies have associated a Mediterranean diet with a
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  Speaker 7: lower risk of a number of different conditions heart disease, strokes, diabetes,
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  Speaker 7: Alzheimer's disease, obesity, the list goes on. And there importantly,
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  Speaker 7: here are clinical trials. Those are the gold standard when
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  Speaker 7: it comes to proving whether something is effective, in this
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  Speaker 7: case diet, and I should say randomized trials are very
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  Speaker 7: difficult to do when it comes to diet.
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  Speaker 8: Is think of all the challenges there.
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  Speaker 7: You have to make sure that people eat a particular diet,
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  Speaker 7: which is very difficult, difficult, very hard, and then you
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  Speaker 7: have to figure out, okay, what else are they eating
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  Speaker 7: that may complicate that. You have to of course, they're
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  Speaker 7: very expensive, and you have to follow people long enough
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  Speaker 7: to really show an effect, and sometimes that can mean
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  Speaker 7: many years or decades. But that's said, there have been
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  Speaker 7: several clinical trials on the Mediterranean diet that have shown
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  Speaker 7: that it can be effective in reducing the risk of
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  Speaker 7: both cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
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  Speaker 8: So we have evidence from there as well.
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  Speaker 7: And then we have other types of evidence, small short
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  Speaker 7: term studies that show improvements in markers like cholesterol, inflammation,
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  Speaker 7: things like that that also add to the body of evidence,
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  Speaker 7: the very large body of evidence suggesting that a Mediterranean
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  Speaker 7: way of eating is very helpful or can be very helpful.
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  Speaker 3: And so when we talk about the Mediterranean diet, it's
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  Speaker 3: basically there's fish, lean protein.
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  Speaker 1: Les, olive oil, nuts.
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  Speaker 3: In the trial that's run from this, people were given versions.
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  Speaker 1: Of that diet.
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  Speaker 3: Some of them had nuts, some of them had more
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  Speaker 3: olive oil, and there were some wine involved.
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  Speaker 1: I believe right red wine specifically.
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  Speaker 3: I think what's hard about what's hard for me about
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  Speaker 3: this is I absolutely agree with you. I think that's
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  Speaker 3: the kind of diet that has the most evidence space.
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  Speaker 3: But not everyone is going to eat that exact it's
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  Speaker 3: going to have that exact eating pattern.
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  Speaker 1: And where people then want.
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  Speaker 3: To go is to ask, well, what are the like,
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  Speaker 3: what are the individual components or how much flexibility is
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  Speaker 3: there around that?
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  Speaker 1: You know, if I is it okay to eat some
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  Speaker 1: red meat. What about Like I.
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  Speaker 3: Just wonder, like, is there a way for us to
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  Speaker 3: understand these deviations, to go to say anything more?
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  Speaker 1: In some ways?
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  Speaker 3: Is there a way to say anything in the data
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  Speaker 3: that's more helpful than just a Mediterranean diet has been
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  Speaker 3: shown to be good.
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  Speaker 1: It would be great if you could have that well.
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  Speaker 7: I would say that there is an advantage and a
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  Speaker 7: disadvantage in the way that the Mediterranean diet has been
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  Speaker 7: presented to us. The disadvantage is that, as you say,
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  Speaker 7: there aren't strict guidelines that you must eat this much fish,
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  Speaker 7: or you must limit yourself to this much alcohol. I
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  Speaker 7: actually there are limits on alcohol, But the point is
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  Speaker 7: that there aren't strict guidelines the way that people often
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  Speaker 7: expect when it comes to other diets. So that can
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  Speaker 7: be an issue for people because sometimes people want to know, okay,
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  Speaker 7: how much of this and that every category of food
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  Speaker 7: should I consume. The advantage, though, is that there is
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  Speaker 7: so much flexibility that people can tailor this way of
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  Speaker 7: eating to what.
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  Speaker 8: Works for them.
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  Speaker 7: So, for example, when it comes to protein, if you
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  Speaker 7: prefer fish, or if you like nuts, or if you
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  Speaker 7: like other kinds of protein, you can use whatever combination
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  Speaker 7: and whatever sources work for you in terms of what
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  Speaker 7: you like and what you don't like, so you're not
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  Speaker 7: in a situation where you're forcing yourself to eat foods
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  Speaker 7: you don't like, which is often the case on very
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  Speaker 7: prescriptive diets. And so what I like to say about
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  Speaker 7: the Mediterranean Way of eating is that it provides guidelines
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  Speaker 7: but a lot of flexibility so that people can work
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  Speaker 7: within those guidelines to eat in a way that.
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  Speaker 8: Works for them.
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  Speaker 7: I also should say that it is a reflection of
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  Speaker 7: the fact that there is no single optimal diet, and
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  Speaker 7: I think that's very important because often.
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  Speaker 1: That is very important.
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  Speaker 7: We're searching for this holy grail in is diet A
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  Speaker 7: or diet B or C or D the best diet?
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  Speaker 7: And the answer is there's no such thing as a
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  Speaker 7: best diet. There are many paths to the same destination,
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  Speaker 7: and I think the Mediterranean Way of eating reflects that
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  Speaker 7: fact that within these guidelines you can get to that
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  Speaker 7: destination depending on what your preferences are and what works
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  Speaker 7: for you long term. And I think that's something that
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  Speaker 7: we've been led to believe that we have to find
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  Speaker 7: the optimal diet. And the truth is that the Mediterranean
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  Speaker 7: Way of eating helps us get to that without having
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  Speaker 7: to follow a diet that is best for everyone.
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  Speaker 3: Quote unquote, I mean the history of sort of how
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  Speaker 3: we talk about individual foods is rife with these examples
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  Speaker 3: where we decided, you know, one food was good or
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  Speaker 3: one food was bad, and that somehow we could identify
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  Speaker 3: a component, you know, butter is bad and if only
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  Speaker 3: we can take butter out and replace it with margarine,
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  Speaker 3: you know, health is going to be improved. And in
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  Speaker 3: some of those cases it just turns out to be
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  Speaker 3: a waste. And in some of those cases, like the
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  Speaker 3: butter and margarine, that actually turned out to be literally
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  Speaker 3: the opposite of what what was true. But I think
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  Speaker 3: it does illustrate for me what's very hard about this
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  Speaker 3: question of what is the best diet or what is this.
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  Speaker 1: Or is this a superfood?
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  Speaker 3: Which is that there really is not something which you
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  Speaker 3: would say you must eat that or you absolutely cannot
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  Speaker 3: eat that.
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  Speaker 1: You do you agree with that? Or is that there
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  Speaker 1: are things you put in the must or no.
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  Speaker 8: No, absolutely.
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  Speaker 7: And I think that this is a very important issue
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  Speaker 7: because there has been a growing trend toward what has
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  Speaker 7: been called nutritionism, which is the idea of thinking about
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  Speaker 7: foods in terms of their individual constituents. What, how much
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  Speaker 7: car how higher they are low in carbs, what about
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  Speaker 7: their program counting your macros?
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  Speaker 1: Are you act Robert.
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  Speaker 7: Right, counting your macros but also looking at omega threes
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  Speaker 7: or looking at antioxidants or looking at whether they contain cholesterol.
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  Speaker 8: The list goes on and on on, so breaking down.
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  Speaker 7: Foods to their constituents, and this kind of reductionism, I
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  Speaker 7: think has led us to some really bad places in
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  Speaker 7: being obsessed with the individual properties of foods rather than
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  Speaker 7: looking at our diets as a whole. Related to this,
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  Speaker 7: as this concept you mentioned of superfoods, the idea of
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  Speaker 7: elevating certain foods, whether it's berries, or whether it's salmon,
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  Speaker 7: or whether green tea, the list goes on and elevating
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  Speaker 7: these foods to some kind of mythical status where we
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  Speaker 7: have to eat these in order to be healthy.
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  Speaker 8: Now, granted, many.
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  Speaker 7: If not most, of these foods can be part of
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  Speaker 7: a healthy diet overall, but to isolate these foods, to
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  Speaker 7: say that we have to eat these foods to be
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  Speaker 7: healthy is really the result of very very smart marketing
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  Speaker 7: on the part of companies that have latched onto this
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  Speaker 7: idea to convince us that we need these foods. And
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  Speaker 7: I think both of those ideas, nutritionism and superfoods are
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  Speaker 7: ones that we need to resist when we're thinking about
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  Speaker 7: a healthy diet and focus instead on the overall, the
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  Speaker 7: overall diet hairy.
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  Speaker 8: Patterns that we have, the diet as a whole.
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  Speaker 3: The current version of this I see a lot of
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  Speaker 3: in the social media space. In particular is protein. So
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  Speaker 3: this idea like that you must get. I don't know
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  Speaker 3: one gram of protein for every kilogram of body weight,
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  Speaker 3: or some number that requires you to eat like a
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  Speaker 3: disturbing amount of protein. People get very engaged in counting
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  Speaker 3: their protein. In particular, I'm curious if you count your protein.
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  Speaker 8: I do not. I do not count macros.
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  Speaker 7: I try to live by what I've described as a
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  Speaker 7: way of thinking overall about my diet. Certainly there are
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  Speaker 7: situations where that may be beneficial. If somebody is trying
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  Speaker 7: to build muscle, if they're a bodybuilder or lifting weights,
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  Speaker 7: it's important to get extra protein. And likewise, an older
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  Speaker 7: person who is who is undernourished, who's not getting enough food,
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  Speaker 7: it's important to try to think about focusing on protein.
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  Speaker 8: But for most.
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  Speaker 7: People, the normal American diet, people typically get adequate amounts
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  Speaker 7: of protein, and it's not particularly helpful to fixate on protein.
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  Speaker 1: In my view.
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  Speaker 3: One of the things I think is very interesting about
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: this space and the sort of like the comments made
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  Speaker 3: me think of it. A comment you made about somebody
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: who's trying to like bulk up is actually much of
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the best like evidence we have about eating comes from
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  Speaker 3: like sports, comes from sort of like places where you
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  Speaker 3: can study people who are doing like endurance athletics and
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  Speaker 3: you know, do experiments with protein and see could you
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  Speaker 3: have all the protein at the beginning or do you
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  Speaker 3: have to spread the protein during the day. But those
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  Speaker 3: studies are often not very relevant to a population who
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: is both not exercising at that kind of like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: not running one hundred and twenty miles a week, but
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  Speaker 3: also is kind of eating a diet that's sort of
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  Speaker 3: so far from where you would need to be screwing
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  Speaker 3: around on the on the edges that it seems kind
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  Speaker 3: of kind of irrelevant.
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  Speaker 8: I agree with that.
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  Speaker 7: And what's more, often these kinds of studies are extrapolated
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  Speaker 7: to the average person.
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  Speaker 8: We see this in social.
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: Media, we see it in news stories, and that can
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  Speaker 7: be counterproductive.
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  Speaker 8: We'll give you one example.
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  Speaker 7: You may have read stories about people should refuel after
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: exercise with chocolate milk because it has the perfect.
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  Speaker 8: Ratio of carbs and protein.
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  Speaker 1: Well for someone to ruin this for me, do not
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: ruin this for me, Robert.
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  Speaker 8: I'm sorry to do that.
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  Speaker 7: But for someone who's an a leaf athlete, studies do
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  Speaker 7: suggest that that kind of refueling after you've done intensive exercise,
• 16:15
  Speaker 7: perhaps several sessions a day, can be beneficial. But for
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: the average person who goes for a walk or takes
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  Speaker 7: a yoga class, there's no reason to drink chocolate milk
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  Speaker 7: after you exercise, And if you're concerned about your weight,
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  Speaker 7: that may be very well counteracting any benefits you get
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  Speaker 7: from the exercise by adding more calories after you exercise
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  Speaker 7: than you burned during that activity. So that's just one
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  Speaker 7: of many examples where these kinds of studies that you say,
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: as you say, can be very beneficial for understanding what
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: works in athletes have been misappropriated when we.
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  Speaker 8: Are talking about average people and what is best for us.
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  Speaker 3: I want to interject that I drink a chocolate protein
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  Speaker 3: shake every time I exercise, and uh, just the reader,
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  Speaker 3: the listeners should know that there you go. I'm not
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: going to rethink it. I love I love the front. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: all right, I want to talk about ultraprocessed foods because
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  Speaker 3: I think this is for if you sort of asked
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: the question of kind of what is our most hated,
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  Speaker 3: most maligned food group and also our most consumed food group. Ironically,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: it is this category of ultra processed foods. So let
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: me just open that aperture just generally for you, which is, like,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: what is your take on the kind of ultraprocessed foods?
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  Speaker 1: Are the worst? Ultra process foods are fine? I love them.
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  Speaker 1: Where are you on the ultra process foods?
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  Speaker 7: I would say there is growing evidence that ultraprocessed foods
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  Speaker 7: are bad for us. But I say that with several
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: important caveats, because they're the research is still in its infancy,
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  Speaker 7: relatively speaking, and there are some gaps in our understanding
• 18:03
  Speaker 7: of ultra processed foods that are important for us to understand.
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: For starters, let's talk about just the concept of ultraprocessed foods.
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: It comes from The concept comes from Brazil. It was
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: developed in two thousand and nine, and basically it refers
• 18:18
  Speaker 7: to foods that have gone through, as the name suggests,
• 18:21
  Speaker 7: a lot of processing in a factory. So the foods
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: typically have additives, preservatives, colors, flavors, things like that, and
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: then typically salt, fat, and sugar on top of that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 8: So think think of things.
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: Like hot dogs and packaged cookies and frozen piazza, sugary cereals,
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: things like that. So I think that it's I think again,
• 18:49
  Speaker 7: there's pretty good evidence, or at least we're seeing better
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: evidence as we go, that these things are associated with a.
• 18:55
  Speaker 8: Number of health effects.
• 18:56
  Speaker 7: That One of the shortcomings, though, is that number one,
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: this category of ultra processed foods may include and does include,
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: some foods that may not be so bad for us.
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: For example, it includes package breads.
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: Well, as we know, you can find an array of
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: package breads, some of which we know are not.
• 19:15
  Speaker 8: Good for us, but some of which are good for us,
• 19:17
  Speaker 8: that are.
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: High in whole grains, and other things that aren't necessarily
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: bad for us. So sometimes the ultra process category lumps
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: together some things that should or shouldn't be there. I
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: also can tell you, as somebody who grew up in
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: the South, there are plenty of things that people cook
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: at home that aren't so good for you that would
• 19:36
  Speaker 7: not be.
• 19:36
  Speaker 8: Classified as ultra processed foods.
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: Where I come from, everything is fried and those would
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: not necessarily be classified as ultra processed foods. But they
• 19:45
  Speaker 7: aren't so good for us, So it's not a perfect system.
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: And then also the other hole we have here is
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: that we don't understand what it is about these foods
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: yet that.
• 19:59
  Speaker 8: Are bad that is so bad for us. Is it
• 20:01
  Speaker 8: the salt, fat, and sugar.
• 20:02
  Speaker 7: Is it the properties of the foods that typically cause
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: us to over consume them. Is it the certain constituents
• 20:11
  Speaker 7: in the foods, whether the whatever additives there are, the emulsifiers,
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: the colors, the flavors. Is it some combination of things.
• 20:21
  Speaker 7: We don't know that. And I think that this again
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: is something that we need to understand better to fully
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: understand the extent to which these foods.
• 20:32
  Speaker 8: Are having effect in our diets.
• 20:34
  Speaker 7: But the short answer to your question overall is I
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: would say that there's enough evidence about the downsides of
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: these foods to suggest that we should try to minimize
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: them in our diets.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: When I look at that evidence, one of the things
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: that I see very strongly is the socioeconomic confound So
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the ultra processed foods are cheap, and they are therefore
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: consumed largely or more disproportionately by people who have other
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: have less education, have less income, have less access to resources,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: exercise less, smoke, smoke more. Like all of those things
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: in the data kind of very closely correlate.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And so I.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: In some ways the evidence is so there's so much
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: of it that it's hard to like ignore it, and
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: yet all of it has this like enormous confound And
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: for me, that's I'm not sure this is really a question.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I just think, like that's always on my mind when
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: we talk about this is just how do you know
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: it's the food and not the poverty.
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: No, that's that's right, And there's no way to know
• 21:39
  Speaker 8: that for certain.
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: And this is you identify one of the real shortcomings
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: and nutrition science generally, because there are these as are
• 21:48
  Speaker 7: called confounders when we study nutrition the way that we
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: study nutrition, and it's we can try to control for them,
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: but knows method is perfect, and so there are always
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: these lingering questions about is it what we think it
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: is that's leading to worse health outcomes, or is it
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: some other other factor that we haven't measured adequately?
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: My sort of favorite study of this though, which I
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: think is does have a strong causal interpretation, which is
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: probably where I would like glom onto some of thinking
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: that there's ultra process foods or not ideal is this
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: study where they brought people into a lab and they
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: fed them the ultra processed diet versus the whole foods diet,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: and you basically see that people are eating the ultra
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: processed diet eat five hundred calories like everyone has unlimited
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: food access and they're in a lab and it's very
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: controlled and giving people this ultra process food diet, they're
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: eating like five hundred calories more every day than.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: The people who are eating the whole foods diet. And
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that feels like.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Even alone, the kind of the caloric consumption, the idea
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: that these foods are like designed for you to want
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: to eat more, they make you less full or whatever
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: it is, and then you're eating more calories and then
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: that contributes to metabolic disease, feels like there's something to
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: that link.
• 23:00
  Speaker 7: You're right, And it also it's consistent with many people's
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: personal experiences, right, so we know if you sit down
• 23:06
  Speaker 7: with the bag of potato chips, I am certainly this way,
• 23:09
  Speaker 7: and many people I know odds are you're going to
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: just mindlessly keep eating those potato chips because of the
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: way they're designed, as you say, to cause you to
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: keep eating them. And there's a lag between the time
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: we're full in the brain we're full, and that the
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: brain tells us we're full, and so these foods are
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: designed in a way to take advantage of that, so
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: we keep eating them long enough.
• 23:30
  Speaker 8: So that long before well before our brains tell us
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: that we're full.
• 23:35
  Speaker 7: The other I mean when you think in compare that,
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: for example, to eating say an apple or other fruits.
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: You're not going to sit there and eat five apples
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: because you're going to fill up much more quickly on
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: say whole fruit, because it contains fiber and other constituents
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: that make you feel full. So just just something like
• 23:53
  Speaker 7: that alone tells us that there is high likelihood that
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: these foods do have certain effects on us that whole
• 24:00
  Speaker 7: foods do not.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: For me, that's actually an important for parents.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: That distinction is relevant because I think one of the
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: things that happens in some of this discussion is it's
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: like ever giving your kid goldfish is basically.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: You're just like feeding them a bowl of poison.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: And I think recognizing like it's okay to eat some goldfish,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Like we want to recognize that, like your temptation is
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: going to be to eat the entire bag of goldfish,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: and like maybe you want to s also have an
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: apple or start with the apple or some other version
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: of that. But it's not that like you can never
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: have goldfish, or you can never have candy, or you
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: can never have you know, any particular kind of food.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Because actually that I mean, we know also that telling
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: people they can never have something, then you know, later
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: when you can't see them, they eat all of it.
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: I think that's that's absolutely true.
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: And when we think about these foods, I think it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: important to say we're not saying or we shouldn't say
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: that they are poison or you should never consume them,
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: because a it's that's not true, and be it's counterproductive
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: because when you tell people that, often they tune out
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: what you're saying because they find that the prescription is
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: impossible to follow. And so these foods are very convenient.
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: We know that, and often busy parents don't have a choice.
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: And even when you're not a parent, you don't have
• 25:17
  Speaker 7: a choice because sometimes you need to get something out
• 25:19
  Speaker 7: of a package to eat. And so I think the
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: point though here is we get back to this idea
• 25:25
  Speaker 7: of what is your overall dietary pattern. How big a
• 25:27
  Speaker 7: part of your diet do these foods make up? And
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: I think it's reasonable to say that they should make
• 25:32
  Speaker 7: up to try to minimize the meaning that you don't
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: have them as regular staples of your diet, but that
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: is it is to be expected they're going to be
• 25:41
  Speaker 7: part of everyone's diet to some extent.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: More parent data, including the food industry and how much
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: nutritional responsible ability actually lays at the feet of parents,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: how GLP ones has changed the conversation around food, and
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: some practical nutrition hacks for feeding your kids. After the break,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: so we did an episode of Raising Parents on Food
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: in which you were a guest, and we talked a
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: lot about some of these sort of related related issues
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: about obesity in general. One of the things that sort
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: of one of the pieces of reaction that I got
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: to that was a feeling of somehow like that it's
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: putting too much, a feeling that we're putting too much
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: pressure on individual parents and on sort of individual choices
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: and not blaming the system enough, and that when you
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: as a parent or you as a person come into.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: The grocery store, the bread has sugar.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: And so even if your goal is to minimize process
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: foods or minimizure or whatever is that we've told you
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: to do, we've actually made it incredibly difficult to do
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: because some of the whole foods are very expensive. And
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: also everything is just like everything that you see is
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: in this bad food category. I'm curious if you think
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: that that's that's a sort of fair criticism of this
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: kind of we're putting too much on individuals.
• 27:36
  Speaker 7: Well, I think it's I think it's the reality we face.
• 27:40
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think we can talk all day about
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: the need to force food companies to produce more foods
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: that are healthful and to market foods in a more
• 27:50
  Speaker 7: transparent and honest way. So we can talk about that,
• 27:53
  Speaker 7: and I think those are important things that need to happen.
• 27:55
  Speaker 7: But also we live in the world where food companies have,
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: as we know, enormous power. They've continued to push back
• 28:03
  Speaker 7: against efforts to change rules around those things and to
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: restrict what they do in ways, and so yes, we
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: can say it's the fault of the food industry, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: it's the fault of society for allowing these kinds of
• 28:16
  Speaker 7: foods to be marketed. But the fact is, the society
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: we live in, they are. That's the way it is,
• 28:22
  Speaker 7: And so I think that the two don't have to
• 28:24
  Speaker 7: mutually exclusive. We can push legislatively for changes to improve
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: the quality of the foods we eat. But I think
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: also there's no escaping the role that parents have when
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: it comes to understanding the properties of foods to the
• 28:40
  Speaker 7: best of their ability and making the wisest choices they can.
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: So I don't think it's one of the other.
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: I think that regardless of how effective we can be
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: in a societal way when it comes to this, it
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: still doesn't absolve parents of the need and the responsibility
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: to focus on the individual foods and the overall patterns
• 29:04
  Speaker 7: of foods, of the quality of foods that they're buying.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: But do you think there's something we could do to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: help them?
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is the piece that I'm
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: always that I get a little stuck on. I mean,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: my whole life is about trying to, like I don't know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: help help parents make better choices or make bake decisions
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: that work for their family. And this advice, which I
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: mean I give all the time, which is like, you know,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: family dinner is great, and you know, like you can
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: let your kid watch TV while you make dinner, and
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: it's nice to sit down together and give them vegetables
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: with dip beforehand, and like these things they feel like
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: like I think sometimes sort of insurmountable to people, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: like my kid doesn't like these things, and I just
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: I wish there was something.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I wish there was something.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: More helpful that we could tell people other than this
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: is very hard and you have to invest in it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 7: Well, I don't have an answer to that. What I
• 30:02
  Speaker 7: can say is that small changes can make a big difference.
• 30:05
  Speaker 7: So I think that parents don't need to feel, or
• 30:07
  Speaker 7: shouldn't feel that they have to be perfect and that
• 30:11
  Speaker 7: if they can't always get their kids eat vegetables, or
• 30:14
  Speaker 7: can't always make sure that they're eating a healthy item
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: in every single meal, it's okay. I think that working
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: toward trying to minimize these processed foods we're talking about,
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: these highly processed foods, these ultra processed foods, and trying
• 30:29
  Speaker 7: to incorporate when possible more whole foods, more foods, vegetables,
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: whole grains in the diet, even in small ways, can
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: make a big difference. So I think it's I think
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: it's important just to think about small changes when possible,
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: rather than trying to think about, well, you have to
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: have a perfect diet or near perfect diet. And I
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: think sometimes the advice that's given to people leads them
• 30:52
  Speaker 7: to conclude that, well, if I can't have this perfect
• 30:55
  Speaker 7: or near perfect diet for my child, I'm failing and
• 30:58
  Speaker 7: I might as well not try. And it's just this
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: is overwhelming, and that's unfortunate, because I think the message
• 31:03
  Speaker 7: needs to be small changes are good and whatever small
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: changes you can make as a parent, that's a good thing.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think this is this idea of
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: kind of we tell people it's it's sort of all
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: or nothing, and we don't help them understand that, like
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: there's intermediate versions and moving a little bit in one direction.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: I mean we do this in public health messaging all
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: the time, where we don't give people a chance to understand,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: like what's the kind of what's better than where you
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: are now? But is not all the way to where
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: you know one might ideally be if all you cared
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: about was diet, Like we just got to help people
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: like make these make these small, these small changes that
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: are feasible. Okay, I want to ask you in the
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: last part of this about GLP ones because I feel
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: like over over all of the discussion of food and
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: weight and like the the sort of entire landscape has
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: been in some way like totally upended with the idea
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: that now there's just a drug and you just like
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: injected and like everything's all great and it's not quite there.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: But I think that's sort of it's almost like our
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: discussion about food, which was so focused on like what's
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: the optimal way to eat to be skinny and like
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: thinking about diets and food patterns as a way to
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: lose weight, Like then it was like, oh, well, didn't
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: talk about that anymore, because now we have this other
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: way called ose epic. And do you feel that am
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I just making up that feeling or is that.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Do you think that that's happened to some extent.
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: I think to some extent it has happened. And it's
• 32:47
  Speaker 7: unfortunate because we need to separate these issues of preventing
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: obesity because we know we have an epidemic of both
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: childhood and adult obesity, clearly as a result of lifestyle
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: issues of both diet and movement exercise in the way
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: that we live has led to this epidemic. So we
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: need to think about what is it that we can
• 33:13
  Speaker 7: change in the way that we live our lives with
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: regard to diet, with regard to our activity that's going
• 33:18
  Speaker 7: to reduce the incidents, reduce the number of new cases
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: of obesity, bring those rates down. That's one question, and
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: that absolutely involves what we're talking about here, the way
• 33:29
  Speaker 7: that we eat, the quality of our diets, as well
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: as exercise. The other part of this equation, though, is
• 33:35
  Speaker 7: what happens once someone a child or adult becomes obese,
• 33:39
  Speaker 7: And there it's more complicated, And here's where the drugs
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: come into play, because these drugs can be appropriate for
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: certain individuals, particularly those who are at the upper ends
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: of the obesity scale, for whom diet and other measures
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: have failed to help bring their weight down and who
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: are at higher risk of a number of conditions from
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: heart disease to cancer to diabetes, and so here in
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: that case, those drugs can be an important option that
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: some people have. But I think to say that because
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: we now have these drugs that we can abandon efforts
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: around healthier eating, or that that doesn't matter as much,
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: is a huge mistake, because in fact, we need to
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: focus on improving the quality of our diets, have to
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: bring those rates down from where they are now.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: If you were made the foods are of America, what
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: would you do?
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: I would start by requiring more honest, transparent marketing of
• 34:46
  Speaker 7: food We have so much misleading marketing of foods that
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: leads parents and others to believe they're buying healthful foods
• 34:55
  Speaker 7: for their children that are not helpful. There's a long
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: list of tricks that marketers use, everything from buzzwords like
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: healthy and natural and multi grain and to things like
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: made with real fruit that when it has a dusting
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: of puree in it. So all kinds of tricks that
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: marketers are allowed to use to trick parents into thinking
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: that they're giving their kids healthy foods. So I would
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: certainly push for changes in the way that foods are
• 35:27
  Speaker 7: marketed so that parents can truly make more informed decisions
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: without having to spend hours and hours of research to
• 35:34
  Speaker 7: figure out what it is they need to eat. And
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: I also think that, you know the other things that
• 35:38
  Speaker 7: have been talked about with regard to kids school lunches.
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: That's an important one because kids do get a large
• 35:44
  Speaker 7: percentage of their calories at school, both breakfast and lunch.
• 35:47
  Speaker 7: And to have stricter standards when it comes to making
• 35:50
  Speaker 7: sure that kids have foods that are healthful and so
• 35:54
  Speaker 7: I think those two measures certainly could make a difference
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: with regard to child nutrition. I think that when we
• 36:00
  Speaker 7: start getting into, however, removing certain elements from the foods,
• 36:05
  Speaker 7: as certain people have done, whether it's seed oils or
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: whether it's a mulsifiers, we get into really complex and
• 36:10
  Speaker 7: controversial science. I don't think that is always necessarily helpful,
• 36:15
  Speaker 7: just given the complexity of understanding what is it that
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: makes foods good or bad for us.
• 36:19
  Speaker 8: But again, getting back to this idea of overall.
• 36:22
  Speaker 7: Patterns, any kinds of policies that can help people make
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: better choices in keeping with those guidelines I think is worthwhile.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the question of these sort of individual removing individual
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: components feels to me like we haven't fixed some of
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: the more basic issues, like there are some there's much
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: lower hanging fruit, and so like whether a multifiers are
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: bad or not bad. I mean my view is a
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: lot of the stuff about seed oils it's kind of
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: overblown and it's probably not really as significant as most
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: people say. But even if you took the kind of
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: data sort of at face value, this is not very
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: important relative to some of this other stuff.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And so, and it's an awful lot of work.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: And there's this sort of more general like, as you say,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: not marketing, try to improve school lunches, which for me
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: should be an enormous priority because it is where a
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: lot of kids, and especially a lot of vulnerable kids,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: get a lot of their calories. And if those calories
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: were more vegetables and more interesting vegetables and were an
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: opportunity to introduce interesting tastes to kids, like it feels
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: like we're really missing out there, even though that's hard.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, I want to minimize like people have tried
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: to do that. It's very difficult, but maybe we can.
• 37:42
  Speaker 8: Try, right and we certainly can do better than we're
• 37:46
  Speaker 8: doing now.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, how much do you think?
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Last thing I wanted to ask is is how much
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: do you think that we.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Need to have better nutrition education?
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: So need to have people to sort of spend more
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: time explaining to people, you know, what is a healthy
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: eating pattern.
• 38:13
  Speaker 7: I think we need to do that, but in the
• 38:15
  Speaker 7: context of helping people change their eating habits, in the
• 38:19
  Speaker 7: context of their traditional way of eating culturally and otherwise. So,
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: for example, I see evidence that for example, cooking classes
• 38:30
  Speaker 7: for people that eat a certain way because it's part
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: of the way that they've grown up eating or it's
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: part of their culture, and to say, Okay, these are
• 38:39
  Speaker 7: foods that you like to eat. Here's how you can
• 38:40
  Speaker 7: prepare the foods that you're accustomed to eating in a
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: healthier way. So you don't have to make enormous changes
• 38:47
  Speaker 7: in the way you eat and give up the foods
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: you like. But here are small changes you can make,
• 38:50
  Speaker 7: or certain ways of preparing the food differently that would
• 38:53
  Speaker 7: make it more healthful, or here are ways that you
• 38:55
  Speaker 7: can add other foods to the foods that you're eating.
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: So I think those kinds of classes and that kind
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: of education can be very beneficial because it's culturally sensitive.
• 39:06
  Speaker 7: It's sensitive to the fact that people eat for a
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: lot of reasons, including tradition and what's culturally familiar to them,
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: and so working within that context to help educate people
• 39:19
  Speaker 7: around specifically preparing foods and preparing foods in a different
• 39:23
  Speaker 7: way and adding other foods in. But respecting their history
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: of eating and their way of eating I think is
• 39:30
  Speaker 7: really important because I think if we just throw more
• 39:32
  Speaker 7: information at people and say, well, you need to eat
• 39:34
  Speaker 7: more whole grains and you need to eat less saturated fat,
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: I think that's not necessarily helpful. And to stop eating
• 39:41
  Speaker 7: certain foods, stop eating fried foods, I think that's going
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: to be less effective than working people with people where
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: they are.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, I've always one of my most hated things is
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: the plate or the pyramid and the plate, the sort
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: of transition from the pyramid to the plate or the plate.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Now the plate looks different, I guess we're in like
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: plate two point. But this has always felt to me
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: like it's so nonspecific, like, oh, this play has different
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: colors on it, Like that's somehow the nutrition information that
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: I need. Maybe people understand you should eat vegetables. The
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: question is how you get them to see that in
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: the context of what they are doing.
• 40:17
  Speaker 7: Right and to take the foods that they're customed eating
• 40:19
  Speaker 7: and say, here's how you introduce a vegetable into that
• 40:21
  Speaker 7: food exactly and that's the kind of education that I
• 40:26
  Speaker 7: think we need a lot more of to help people
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: really get to a place where they're eating a more
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: healthy dietary pattern.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Robert to be like very specific.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: If someone came to you and they said, I want
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: to improve my diet from where it is, what is
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: one thing that you would tell me to do? And
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you in the context of adults,
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: and then I'm going to tell you what I would
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: say if they asked me this in the context of kids.
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: I would say one way that I have found that's
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: worked for me over the years because as a kid,
• 40:57
  Speaker 7: I did not eat vegetables. I would not touch a vegetable.
• 41:00
  Speaker 7: And so one of the ways that I over the years,
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: as I learned more about nutrition and realized I needed
• 41:06
  Speaker 7: to start eating some vegetables was to essentially trick myself
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: in a way where I would add them to things.
• 41:14
  Speaker 7: And so, for example, I would do I would do
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: a sort of put some chicken in a skillet and
• 41:20
  Speaker 7: make that and I would just sort of and then
• 41:22
  Speaker 7: I would say, okay, well, I'm going to cut the
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: chicken up and add a little bit of vegetables to that,
• 41:26
  Speaker 7: so that I would essentially sneak them in. And I
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: know that parents sometimes do this, and there's controversy about
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: whether it's a good idea or bad idea, but I
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: think it can be very effective way to essentially work
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: them in into small ways, into foods that you're used
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: to eating. And what that did for me was it said, Okay, well,
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: this broccoli is okay, it's not so bad, and I
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: can sort of add a little bit of this to
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: my chicken and the skillet, and then gradually I would
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: do that.
• 41:51
  Speaker 8: More and more and more.
• 41:51
  Speaker 7: So what has worked for me, at least was to
• 41:54
  Speaker 7: introduce them in small ways into familiar things.
• 41:59
  Speaker 8: And so.
• 42:01
  Speaker 7: I think it worked because I now eat a number
• 42:03
  Speaker 7: of vegetables. It's all only as many as I should,
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: but I a good number of vegetables, and introducing them
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: slowly and gradually into familiar foods helped a.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Lot with that.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: So I have a piece of advice about children, which
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I give a lot, and then I'm going to give
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: you one that I think was I thought was a
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: good idea at the time, but did not work. So
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: we serve our children vegetables when they are hungry, So
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: when they are like before dinner, at five o'clock there's vegetables,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: and then they will sometimes take vegetables when they watch
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: TV before dinner, and so the sort of like combination
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: of hunger and sort of allowing you to have your
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: vegetables at an earlier time, and then when they sit
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: down to dinner, if they don't eat vegetables at dinner,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: it's sort of okay because they got them as a
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: first course.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: That has turned out for us to be very effective.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: I have one child who does not like vegetables very much,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: even in this context, and one time I got totally
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: desperate and I told him that if he didn't eat
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: any more vegetables he would get scurvy, which was like
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: he did. He was a little freaked out when I
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: explained what scurvy was, but then later my husband was like,
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: it just explained to him, like you're not going to
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: get scurvy, Like it's a good idea to it's a vegetables,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: but actually, like you know, you're not going to get scurvy.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: So I guess that didn't work in the end. I
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: think if you're going to do that, you should get
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: your partner on board with it.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's the lesson discuss it in advance with your partner.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: The scared straight approach exactly. Thank you, Robert, you will
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: priy my chocolate milk out of my cold dead hands.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: But other than that, I really appreciated having you unfair Data.
• 43:47
  Speaker 8: It was fun. Thanks for having me.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Parent Data is produced by Tamar Avishai with support from
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: the parent Data team and pix. If you have thoughts
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: on this episode, please join the conversation on my Instagram
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: at Prof Emily Ostro, and if you want to support
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: the show, become a subscriber to the parent Data newsletter
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: at parentdata dot org, where I write weekly posts on
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: everything to do with parents and data to help you
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: make better, more informed parenting decisions. For example, earlier this fall,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: I wrote an article about ultraprocessed foods that digs into
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: the data that Robert mentioned. You can read it at
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: parent data dot org and if you want it read
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: aloud to you, also listen to the podcast episode we recorded,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: which is linked in the show notes. There are a
• 44:41
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• 44:44
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• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Just remember to mention the podcast to right Fenalpe, Right mam.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Mm hmmmmmmm m hm
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: Hm